Learning by doing

Looking back at the last 16 months, and when I have only 2 months left to finish my MBA, I can't stop thinking about the motto of the business school: Learning by Doing. I am happy that in my particular case this has been true, most of the valuable learning has been outside the classrooms.

Having contact with real clients in different projects since term 1 has been really valuable, especially when you have to work in teams with people from a large variety of cultures and backgrounds. This is very useful but it can be very challenging as well.

One of the projects we had was the UK Consultancy Project during Spring term last year. This was a very interesting experience because we had to conduct focus groups and interviews with doctors and nurses in a specially conditioned market research facility.

Now we are working in the International Business project, which is the final task of the MBA and it is full time dedication to a consultancy project for a real company.

If I think back, the best ways of learning to me have been by doing stuff, and probably that is why MBS was so appealing to me when I was applying to get into Business School back 2009.

Even before the MBA, while working at a start-up company I liked the fact of actually delivering and seeing the fruits of my efforts reflected in results. I'm particularly proud of appearing in a article about payment methods for small and medium businesses.

                                   

I was remembering as well the year when I learnt the most at university, it was 2005 when I was part of the Industrial Engineering Student Council. It was a challenging year, because I had to keep up with my studies as well as carrying on with the council duties, but looking back it was a really fun year when I learnt a lot.

First we had to organise the campaign:

                                                 

Then it was the organisation of extra curricular activities such as Friday night parties (also know as "Happy Night") and Saturday afternoon barbecues. Which implied negotiating with sponsors and organising the logistics

However, the highlight was the Industrial Engineering Summit, an event that had more than 300 people attending to listen well known businessmen and high government officials. It was a real challenge to convince them to take part on it and to organise sponsors, logistics and sale of tickets.

Here with CEO of retailer Cencosud: Horst Paulmann 

Here with Minister of Education: Sergio Bitar

My point is that I believe the educational model from the 1800's is obsolete, and the only way of learning is with experience, doing things and making mistakes. I wish we could find a way to translate this into primary and secondary education and stop with what it looks like a factory of people following established conventions without questioning them.